Jan. 27, 2010
ATLANTA – The Georgia Tech baseball team, ranked No. 6 in Baseball America’s 2010 preseason top-25 poll released Wednesday, will hold its first official practice of the 2010 season this Friday, Jan. 29. Practice will begin at 3:15 p.m. at Russ Chandler Stadium.
The ranking is Tech’s highest preseason mark since opening at No. 4 during the 2006 season. The Jackets are one of six Atlantic Coast Conference teams to be ranked in the top-25. Texas holds the top spot in the Baseball America preseason rankings, while LSU, Cal State Fullerton and Rice round out the top five.
The Jackets, a preseason top-10 team in multiple polls, welcome back 24 letterwinners and 10 starters (six position players, four pitchers) from a 2009 team that finished the season with a 38-19-1 record and reached the finals of the NCAA Atlanta Regional. Also returning is 2009 ACC Pitcher of the Year Deck McGuire, who joins four other Jackets that earned All-ACC honors last season.
Head coach Danny Hall enters his 17th season at the helm on the Flats. The Jackets are 690-313-1 under Hall and have made 14 NCAA Regional appearances in his 16 seasons, including three trips to the College World Series.
In addition to the preseason polls, a few Tech players are garnering some national attention during the preseason. McGuire (first team) and senior Tony Plagman (third team) were named preseason All-Americans by both Louisville Slugger and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association of America (NCBWA) in December.
The Jackets open the 2010 season on Feb. 19 by hosting Missouri State for a three-game series at Russ Chandler Stadium.
Beginning on Feb. 2, and continuing every day until the season opener, fans can go to ramblinwreck.com/baseball to find blogs, video interviews and Q&A’s by members of the 2010 squad about their lives as college students, what’s going on in practice, and their excitement about the upcoming season.
Tickets are still available to the 2010 Baseball Benefit Dinner on Feb. 18 at the Georgia Tech Hotel. Two-time Cy Young winner Tom Glavine will be this year’s guest speaker at the event. RSVP to Nick Scherer at nscherer@athletics.gatech.edu or by calling 404-894-2261.
-RamblinWreck.com-
